All right, good afternoon everyone. Um, I believe we've got a critical mass and can uh go ahead and get started if uh you want to kick us off. Uh, Clark or Jenna. >> Very good, Becca. Thank you. Good
afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Virginia Early Childhood Advisory Committee meeting. Today is Thursday, October 16th, and uh let's begin with roll call. Becca. >> All right. Uh Miss Suarez,
>> here. >> Dr. Parish. >> Here. Sorry. >> That's all right. Uh Mr. Anders >> here. >> Miss Mormon >> here. >> Miss Edmonson
>> here. Dr. Johnson not joining us today. Uh, Miss Langford not on yet. Uh, Mr. Dr. Turner >> here. >> Dr. Walford >> here.
>> Miss Howard >> here. >> Dr. Shrian >> here. >> Dr. Ste, Dr. Nelson couldn't be with us today. Uh Mr. Quinn
>> here. >> Ms. Urizari. >> Miss Lipkcom >> here. >> Dr. McCartney. >> Dr. Patrick >> here.
Mr. Vanderhal >> here. >> Uh, Miss Garri >> here. >> Miss Layman >> here. >> And Miss Tekash >> here.
>> Right. Uh, Mr. Chair, we have a quorum. >> Very good. Becca, thank you again. Uh and again, welcome to all of our returning as well as some new members who we're going to be giving a special welcome to uh very shortly. Uh first on
the agenda today is approval of minutes from our June 26th meeting. Did everyone have an opportunity to review those? And would someone like to make a motion to adopt these minutes? >> I'll make a motion to adopt the minutes.
And please, please state your name. >> Jana Walford. >> Great. Thank you. Is there a second? >> Susan Patrick seconds. >> Very good. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I.
>> Adoption of June 26 minutes. So moved. Becca, do we have any public comment for review? >> We do not today. Okay, very good. With that, I believe I will be turning it over to Miss Jenna Conway.
>> Excellent. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome uh to our virtual ECAC. Uh one of the important items is to welcome our new and reappointed members. And I will ask Becca to to walk
us through that. >> Absolutely. Um so we are thrilled to have uh four new members joining the uh early childhood advisory committee uh beginning uh technically effective July 1st but of course this is uh their first
time uh meeting with us as a group. Um first we have Lisa Garri who is um an education specialist in early childhood um with the uh training and technical assistance center at ODU. Uh Lisa is representing uh advocacy or service organizations for children with
disabilities. Um Lisa, do you want to come off mute and say hello? >> Hi everyone. It's great to be here. >> Awesome. Um and then uh we have Jessica Layman who is the vice president of early childhood education with STEPS
Incorporated and she is representing Head Start programs that are not school-based. Jessica, would you like to come up and say hello? Hey everybody, glad to be here. >> And then we have uh January Takosh who is a senior manager over preK and early
Head Start programs with Fairfax County Public Schools. Um and she is representing Head Start programs that are school-based. January, >> hello everybody. >> Awesome. And then uh last but not least we have Geron Vanderhal who is the child
care capacity coordinator with minus 9to5 which is um ready region southeastern uh and he is representing a nonprofit uh early childhood care and education advocacy organizations. Geron >> hello glad to be here.
>> Awesome. And we are uh thrilled to have you all uh joining this uh very prestigious group. Um, I think the the four of you um are uh great representatives of the the breadth and range of early childhood uh providers
and stakeholders um across the Commonwealth. Um and we're just so excited to continue um the the legacy that this uh group has set forward. Um and we also have a few returning members that were uh reappointed. Um, so we are
pleased to uh have uh Jennifer Parish, Clark Anders, Daryl Turner, and uh Kia Fosterstein uh continuing to serve in their uh their current roles. Um again, these were folks that were actually part of our inaugural committee and and we're
just really happy to have you all continuing on with us. Um so, welcome to our new members and thank you to our uh our folks that are continuing to serve. Back to you, Jenna. >> Wonderful. Thank you and welcome to our
new members and it's great to see your faces on the screen this afternoon. Uh it was also really exciting for those of you who could make it out uh to come out to the event earlier this week to see folks in um in in in real life. Um the next item on the agenda, if we can move
ahead a slide, is to uh elect our chair and vice chair. Um, and as a reminder, as part of our bylaws, we've established these roles within the broader advisory body, making sure that there's someone
uh who can run the meeting uh who is a member of the advisory committee, not uh not uh department staff or or leaders, and then a vice chair who fills in um uh in their absence as as Clark has abley
done um Bush Lake's uh uh recent uh promotion and and and departure from from the early childhood advisory committee. Uh we often also work with these folks to make sure that they're available on the dates of these meetings and ultimately kind of help us uh move
through all of the important content. help us get to uh endorsements. Um often which uh may include um some discussion of different perspectives and thinking through and being really kind of creative and out of the box on how if we
have different perspectives and and different uh uh uh desires, how we can kind of find compromises that allow us to kind of get to an endorsement and continue to move forward. So really important roles for our early childhood advisory committee. What I'll do next is
ask for nominations. We'll start with the chair and then we'll go to the vice chair. And what we'll do is we'll see if we uh get any nominations uh for the position uh holds kind of as it always is on a virtual meeting. A little it's a little bit of awkward silence just to
make sure that we give everybody the opportunity who might want to nominate somebody else or nominate themselves. Both are allowable. Um and then we will uh get a nomination. I'll ask for seconds and then we will do a a vote. >> Okay. First, for the illustrious
position of chair uh of the of Virginia's early childhood advisory committee, do I have any nominations for chair? >> Uh this is Gina Walford. Um I'd like to nominate Mr. Clark Anders.
I will also note that I will give anybody who's nominated the chance to turn it down. Uh if there's any concerns. Clark, do you have any concerns about being nominated for chair? >> Uh no, none at all. Jenna, um thank you for that nomination. Uh it's been an
honor to serve in that capacity and if the board chooses, I would be happy to do it again. Any other nominations for the position of chair of the early childhood advisory committee? >> Yeah, know we need a we need a second on
Clark before we move on. >> Y >> Michelle Smith Howard, I second Clark. All right, having held for uh two minutes uh and having received a second, uh can we have a vote? Uh I want to have
everybody vote in the chat. Um for uh uh if you are voting yes or approve, it is for Clark Anders to be our new chair of the early childhood advisory committee. Uh members, please place your votes now. Becca, does exeicio vote? No, does not.
Right. Jenna, I feel appropriate for myself to abstain from voting. That does not mess up any quorum or anything, does it? >> It doesn't. Although Clark, my mother always tells the story of running for student council. It must have been like
the fourth or fifth grade. very small numbers and she did not vote for herself and lost by a vote. So in in my family we we encourage you to to to vote for yourself but um uh that is fine. You
don't need it though Clark the in the chat uh we have a unanimous approval of Clark Anders as our chair. Congratulations Clark and thank you for your your work so far. >> With that thank you for the board. Thank you for your confidence in me and I will
certainly uh try my best not to let you down. >> Excellent. With that, we need a vice chair. Uh and again, as noted before, uh the vice chair, we also need somebody who is uh can attend all of these
meetings. um is supportive of the chair as we kind of work through important cont uh contact content rather that um affects all of our early childhood care and education policy and practice. Do I have any nominations for the position of
vice chair for the early childhood advisory committee? >> Jen, I'd like to nominate Susan Patrick. >> Excellent. Thank you, Jen Parish. Susan, uh, any concerns with being nominated as vice chair for the early
childhood advisory committee meeting? >> My gosh, no. What an honor. Thank you, Jennifer. >> I second that motion. >> Excellent. All right. Um, with that hearing no other nominations and with a second, I
would ask the early childhood advisory committee to vote in the chat. Uh, uh, approve or yes means voting for Susan Patrick to become our new vice chair of the early childhood advisory committee. Please place your votes. Excellent. All right, we now have a new
chair and vice chair. Congratulations, Clark and Susan. Um uh or some others might say no good deed goes unpunished. So, we're excited for uh your leadership uh as we work through some of the very
important issues over the course of the uh of your term. Uh with that, Clark, uh we will move with your with your permission into our uh VDOE updates. >> Perfect. Thank you. That would be great.
Thanks, Jenna. >> All right. Can we move to the next slide, please? So for today's meeting, as you saw in the agenda, uh you have accomplished all of the really important votes. So the voting items were approval of the
minutes and uh approval of your leadership. That said, we wanted to convene you all to provide you a set of updates. So, these are not items that require endorsement, but we thought they're they represent a set of
important policy or practice items related to early childhood that we wanted to make sure that all of our members were aware of. So, over the course of the next hour and 40 minutes, it'll be quite a bit of content. Um
please don't hesitate to either raise your hand or add a question in the chat section as I want this to be interactive um throughout. But we have important updates on the state of the state, on where we are on attendance tracking, and some of the important areas of health
and safety as it relates to the C the child day center regulations and the pre-ervice training um and and the some of the stakeholder work for um uh our work with sort of thinking about school age and out of school time. I also have
some very important time at the end uh to talk about what happened this week which was the roll out of the 20 425 VQB5 quality profiles and just to share with you the hot off the presses uh data
on what we know about early childhood care and education quality from last year. With that, I want to say thank you to everybody for agreeing to move last week's meeting to this week. Once we found out that the governor was going to
announce the roll out of the profiles, we thought it would make most sense to move this meeting to after that one, so we could share all the information with you that we didn't have to say, "Hey, wait until next Tuesday." And two,
because we have folks on the early childhood advisory committee who work for sites or school divisions or organizations that are recognized this year on the honor roll and it was just too awesome an opportunity uh to pass up in terms of being able to recognize
folks uh on our in in our meeting today. So I know it is a big ass to take two hours out of your afternoon. I know folks are busy at centers and sites and schools and so thank you uh for your willingness to be flexible um at the
last minute so that we could fully recognize all of the accomplishments today um as compared to to uh having it last week where we would have had to be much more circumspect about what we could say. So with that that's our agenda. Please don't hesitate to raise
your hand. uh video team if folks are raising their hand and I'm missing that please flag for me or if you want to pop a question in the chat at any time. We'll start with um the state of the state and some of you might be familiar with this but as the body the body
designated in law that advises the board of education. I wanted to make sure that you all had a sense of what was shared with the field this summer. Um, and it really gives you a sense of where we're where we are across the different parts
of the division of early childhood care and education. uh and in partnership with our private partners such as the early childhood foundation and the ready regions what we see in the future and I always think that's important for the ECAC to understand and that's probably particularly important when we are
facing um uh a an election and a new uh gubanatorial administration kind of being clear of what we've accomplished and what's ahead we think is is is helpful information as we go into the fall. So, this will just be a summary as a reminder. The full state of the state,
all of those slides and uh a recording of our presentation is always available online. And it's the funniest thing. It is uh my favorite presentation to do all year. And oftentimes people will come up to me and be like, "Hey, you know, do you know what I did this weekend?" And they're like, "I watched State of the
State." And I'm like, "That's I mean, you know, if that's what you know, does it for you, that's that's great." But it is uh such a uh a wonderful kind of bringing together of all of the work that the field is doing, that our staff
is doing, that our partners are doing. And so it truly is my my my favorite presentation. As always, we start with kind of our shared vision. And if you've ever seen me present, you've seen this slide, but always our true north is imagining a Virginia where all kids have
the opportunity to come to school ready. We know that requires all of us. It truly takes a village and we want to make sure that families have a variety of highquality public private options. That's child care, that's family day homes, that's schools, that's early head
start, that's Head Start, that's all of those types of programs. There's not one single provider type or program that can serve all kids birth to five. And so it truly takes all of us. As we'll talk about at the end, we had another accomplishment in a second successful year of supporting measuring all of our
programs that take public dollars, supporting them to improve, and then recognizing for that incredible work. And um as we're working very closely with your compatriots on the early child on the commission on early childhood care and education, continuing to understand the very important role that
you all play in enabling parents to work, go to job training or school um so that uh they can pursue greater sufficiency, self-sufficiency while knowing that their children are healthy, safe um and learning and thriving.
Next slide, please. We break this presentation into the five areas that are our sub goals um for our public private system. So we talk about access and in choice quality improvement we'll save for the end so that I can feature the highlights of this week's V
VQB5 roll out family engagement health and safety and then our regional capacity and innovation. And I just want to reiterate, and I very rarely let the team use all caps, but uh this is all caps because it's just that important that Virginia providers, including many
of the representatives on this committee, educators and families and the partners that serve them are essential to this strategy. And we couldn't do it alone. It really takes our public and private partners including the early childhood foundation
ready regions um and our improvement partners to ensure implementation. Um and I always want to make sure that we give credit. I'm the lucky one who gets to make the state of the state presentation each year. But it is truly collective and collaborative effort that led to these accomplishments and I want
to make sure that credit is given where credit is is due. In some ways I have one of the easiest jobs in the system and the work that you all do every day to make this happen is why it happens. Next slide please. So I also have highlighted this year in
a way that we've not done in years past. If we can move one more slide is the through line. And so if you've heard me talk at all in the last few weeks you've heard that term through line. And the idea is thinking about how we as a broader set of early childhood care and
education constituents think about telling the story of what we have done together over the past two administrations. And we've done it in a bipartisan way in a way that is sort of both uh has consistency statewide as we
aim to support every kid to come to kindergarten ready and make sure every family has options. that is also has enough customization to meet the individual needs of providers of families of communities and localities. And this is important regardless of what
happens uh next month that we are sharing with whoever becomes our our our next governor and whoever may be in charge of our house of delegates kind of the things that we've done together and how that what that means for going forward, right? and continuing on this
very positive bipartisan pathway where we are increasing parent choice and access. We are improving quality. We are measuring outcomes and supporting improvement and that we're ultimately building lasting regional infrastructure. Um and that is working
together keeping that core staying that path will be essential to ensuring that more Virginia kids enter kindergarten ready. In case you don't believe me, we've pulled some numbers and I won't go through all of these because there's so many numbers on this page, but this is
really a stunning slide on how much progress this sector has made over the course of two administrations. So, you'll note and we've worked really intentionally with our current governor who's such a champion for early childhood to allow us to kind of go back
and not just compare 2021 to 2025, but to go all the way back to 2018 and really look at over the course of two administrations in which two governors have served as champions in different ways for this work, how much we've accomplished together. And it's our hope
that we can also uh share this information with whoever might be our next governor, right, to think about how they can continue to support this really important work that's happening statewide. So when you look at how many kids are served, we've doubled the number of children. Um this is if you
look at our slots for 2026, even higher than this, but doubling the number of kids that are served with public dollars. Um and a lot of this is driven by demand and increase from working families. We went from under $und00 million in state general funds, nearly all of which went all of which went
towards um state preschool to now this year uh 400 million last year and over $462 million uh going into this year. Just over 200 private providers in childcare subsidy to over uh 3,100 providers. Uh just 1,400 in VQ and most
of those folks were at kind of level one to now over 3,400. I'm more than doubling as my favorite 165 class observations uh in BQ. Uh that's about 13,000 minutes of insight to a whopping
it's even hard to say an 18,844% increase. 31,258 class observations. I guess I get goosebumps even saying that out loud. Um 2.2 2 million minutes of insights into what our infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are uh experiencing. Uh
going from just 30,000 children in BKRP to 130 thou 132,000 children in BKRP, a 300% increase with both VKRP for kindergarten and for preschool. and uh with VA connects where we had separate
data systems that were out ofd and hadn't been updated to a modernized safe secure integrated data system that connects birth through 8th grade classrooms 80,000 users and just under 600,000 children. um and ultimately
enables us to not only show the incredible work that's happening in early childhood, but show its indelible impact on our children as they move through our K12 system and hopefully to help everyone understand this is way
more than babysitting or caretaking. um and truly matters for the future of Virginia, for all of these individual children, for them to fulfill their potential, but ultimately for our broader economy and society. So, just a few just a few things that
you've accomplished over the last two administrations. So, keep that in mind as we think about um you know, all of the kind of the the highlights. You knew, you knew if it was me presenting today that there would be data, but it truly reflects extraordinary
collaboration, coordination, everybody willing to think a different a little bit differently uh and everybody, you know, willing to work hard to be a little bit better tomorrow than they are today. And we are incredibly appreciative and we look forward to working with whomever is elected to kind
of continue this work going forward. Next slide, please. And yes, Melinda, we will make sure that you get you get these slides. They're available now on the state of the state and I'll actually ask the team to put the link in there so you can have these, too. All right. Access and choice. Let's move to the next slide, please.
So, uh, in addition to serving more kids than ever before, I want to reiterate that we used every single dollar in state fiscal year 25 to serve kids with the with the public dollars that were appropriated for early childhood. So, in
years past, if we've not used all the dollars that were allocated, whether that was for child care subsidy or for Virginia preschool initiative, they were swept back up. they were um particularly for those state dollars. This year we were able to use every single dollar to
serve more kids than ever before. Historic highs in uh childcare subsidy as well as BPI. Um and we uh saw and we were able to take when we did not uh we were did not use all of the dollars that
went v to BPI this year, we're able to turn those dollars into childcare subsidy slots. Um and so kind of being able to use every dollar, not a single dollar uh was left unused. We've also continued to work closely with our partners at Head Start to make sure that
they are supported to maximize every single federal resource that's coming in um so that they can uh turn those dollars coming from the feds into services, two generation services for our most vulnerable families. We know, as I described before, that
more providers are taking public dollars and that results in higher capacity to serve publicly funded kids in our private settings. And I think this is really important. We'll talk about BQB5 in a second, but if you'll remember back to the days when we talked about this idea of a mandatory measurement and
improvement system, there was a deep concern that that might result in reduced access. and instead because of the work of this body around the thoughtfulness around BQB5, the thoughtfulness about some of the changes to the childcare center regulations and
ultimately the work to better fund and stabilize the funding for the childcare subsidy program. We've seen the opposite trend and we continue to see the growth and the number of providers that were willing to take public dollars and it's always a choice in Virginia to take uh
for a private provider if they want to take public dollars. Next slide, please. We see continued progress thanks to the work of our vice chair and our other ready region representatives like Giron and others on coordinating enrollment,
making it easier for families to find information um and submit applications. And so we've got five of our nine regions piloting the readytoine online marketplace. And we continue to see thousands and thousands of families using these resources.
Next slide, please. We are excited as we start to pivot and look forward thinking about how ways in which we can better support our private providers. So we know that we've got more of them than ever before. But we also know based on some work that we've done with outside consultants that there
are some challenges around u making sure that you can sign up easily that if there are payment issues you can resolve that. We'll talk a little bit later about our attendance tracking. Um, but we are at the DOE have recently created a new office, the office of early
childhood public private provider services that includes staff from the office of vendor relations at the department of social services. Thanks to Commissioner Erskin and all of his team for their support on this collaboration, but really having an office that's
explicitly focused on processing these applications, encouraging folks to be a part of childcare subsidy, making sure if you've got questions or concerns, you know who to call, and then partnering with our navigators who are out there working in the field to help you with your health or safety expectations, what
it means to be a publicly funded program, how to connect with our now team, which is about 170 people now, very low, much larger than we used to be. Um, uh, uh, how you can find out and get the answer you need from us. So, that's an exciting uh,
update for for the the video aid. Next slide, please. Uh, and then as we go forward, the numbers I talked about before, this is where we get the the the the pure uh, near doubling. These are the slots that we're currently putting into place for this year. So you see
just 75,000 slots in available for uh fiscal year 26. That's up about 5,000 from last year and up 38,000 from 2018. Um some of this involves some shifts that we'll talk about kind of moderate increase in co-ayments, really
encouraging um and limiting job search. Um but sort of working with you all, we're sort of achieving a historic investment and serving more kids than ever before. Next slide. And as we pivot and prepare to go into
uh we sort of think to the future, the challenge still remains and I know is on the top of everybody's mind around managing our weight list. So as of uh September 1st, just under 14,000 children on the childcare subsidy weight
list and just under 2,000 children on the mixed delivery weight list. So, uh, about 8,000 children, just under 9,000 children on the, uh, birth to five children on chocolate subsidy and then all of those 2,000 children are birth to five for mixed delivery.
So, where do we go from here? Um, a couple of important points. Um, continuing to work very closely with the commission and all of you as we make policy shifts to make the most of every single dollar. So implementing the new family co-ayments and job search
expectations this year uh was a big part of our summer and preparing for the fall. We continue to work very closely with the commission um on early childhood and education as they're looking at this unmet demand and thinking about future financing. We also
uh have important partnerships with UVA and other higher ed institution organizations to understand the impact of weight lists. So, we'll be announcing soon results of a family survey for families who are impacted by the weight list. Um, and some of the ways in which that's been challenging as they think
about employment and their economic well-being, improving our customer service. Um, and and as we'll talk a little bit later on in our update, launching our new modernized attendance tracking system uh in December. Next slide, please.
Uh we're going to hold on quality improvement to the end and so we'll move forward to the next slide please. Family engagement. Next slide. Uh we as always put parents and families at the center of our work and so we shared kind
of in the state of the state kind of the accomplishments in this space. This is really made possible by the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation and the Ready Regions um who have convened uh family councils which is our formal mechanism in each of our nine ready regions to
build regional systems and advise the state on initiatives. Uh last year we had just under 200 families participating about 22 families per region and we have asked them everything on stuff from mixed delivery to coordinated enrollment to how what do
they think about the BKRP resources or the website to kind of how do we think about you know implementing hard things like the co-ayments. We also work closely with the Virginia promise partnership parent advisory group as they too also give us their insight. What do they like? What don't they like?
How can we make these systems and these efforts work better for families? We also in the state of the state recognize that we have parent representatives on both the early childhood advisory committee and the commission so that they are at the table as these bodies think about policy and practice for
early childhood care and education statewide. Next slide, please. um as we go forward on family engagement, continuing to build on these these institutions, right, that sort of started as an idea very new in terms of the ready region are now kind of
hopefully more lasting permanent institutions within their communities. So the family councils and working around the coordinated enrollment to make it work easier for families. We will be excited to share the results of the family survey of the weightless families as we kind of prepare this next
governor and general assembly for thinking through how will we address Virginia's very large weight lists and the sort of the need to support families to be able to access affordable child care and really at every turn making sure that families are front and center as we think about statewide policy and
practice. We made some enhancements as I'll talk about at the end to the BQB5 quality profile website. We got uh even in the first day we had uh nearly um uh 10,000 visits and so making it more friendly, more mobile friendly has been
a top priority. And we continue to look at how do we make all of the things that we're doing more clear, more understandable, more accessible to families. um whether that's about VQB5 or VKRP or curriculum, how do we do that
better in more languages and in a way that is more uh deepens family understanding of all of the important work happening across your sites and classrooms. Next slide, please. Health and safety, another big year in this space. Next slide. Um, we did thousands and
thousands and thousands of observations and I had the opportunity to be in front of our team out in Powatan this morning just reflecting on how much work that they did last year um and uh that they serve this essential role in making sure
that families can trust that our programs are safe and healthy. they have strengthened their supports for the field whether that's updating the orientation training looking at how to revise the exemption to lensure form so that is a streamlined and and more
expedient process and then offering um some free trainings uh in both English and Spanish and partnership with the community college workforce alliance um we give you these numbers we still see to see uh you see more inspections uh
than last year as we have more programs That's a good sign. I will say if you look at the national data on child care and early childhood supply, most folks are going in the opposite direction. Fewer sites, fewer family day home sites, fewer educators than pre-
pandemic. Virginia is really um you doing the opposite in terms of really building supply and so there are more inspections, but you see that we held constant in terms of complaints and we actually had fewer allegations of unlicensed activity. Um, we do have a
slightly more follow-up actions and so we continue to kind of monitor how uh much uh work that we we have. Next slide, please. We also are working and we'll talk more about these in these updates. I'm not going to talk a ton about that here, but
obviously you know we've got some work underway on the general procedures, background checks, and the standards for the CDC's. We put into effect a new exemption to lensure in response to law. And then Jeff will talk a little bit later about the pre-ervice training.
Um, and so as we go forward priority, there's really two priorities and I and I shared these with the the team this morning and you were to hear me be a broken record on these, but we got to get these regulations through and implemented. We know you guys have spent hours and hours as a body on these. And
so that is top priority, top priority. and we got to get a new technology that will make all of this less burdensome for providers and our staff alike. So, we are I this is what I talk with Jeff about every single week when we when we check in, but these are our absolute top
priorities for health and safety as we move forward. We also want to continue to strengthen our partnership with providers. It is our job to partner with the thousands of private and publicly funded private partners across the state to improve health and safety for kids. And that means partnership, training,
support. Um, and pre-ervice will be an important part of that. Next slide. Regional capacity and innovation highlights here. Uh, you know, we, uh, like to think of ourselves as building a national model. And a part
of that means taking what we know about uh Virginia's programs, sites, educators, and families, and using that information and empowering folks at the local level to develop innovations that work best for their communities, their
providers, their families, and their kids. So, just a sampling of some of the innovative work that's happening out in the field. Really exciting. ready together out in Southwest Virginia partnering to have business help contribute to the cost of child care for
employees. So the state employers and families are all contributing and kind of piloting a new model there. Thinking about how we can more quickly and expediently attract, prepare and retain educators. It's still the biggest issue when I hear when I'm talking with the
field whether it's head start or child care. How do we uh find educators and keep them? We're piloting a new digital wallet in the spring, thinking about kind of technology that can help employers contribute towards the cost of
child care, but wanting to not only rest on some of the accomplishments that I've just described, but to continue to innovate because we know there are pain points, we know there are challenges, and want to support everybody uh to uh be successful in working together to
help prepare all kids for kindergarten. Uh, and we couldn't do this without ready regions and we're so excited to have our ready region reps on the call on the ECAC, excuse me, sort of helping us think through, you know, how do we do
this work in a way that meets the unique needs of Virginia communities. This cannot and will not just be designed in Richmond, but has to involve meaningful local leadership, uh, accountability and family engagement across the state. And so we re had the process that we do
every three years where we have to recompete uh for the ready regions. We have the nine entities who were selected um and they continue to meet 100% of the expectations. So they have a very rigorous contract with the state to build these relationships, get the data
in the system, measure quality, coordinate enrollment, and engage families. And they continue to meet and exceed all those expectations. Uh you'll hear us talk more about this. You might remember this when we talk we received the federal preschool
development grant um uh uh about two about a year and a half ago or so. And that what that allows us to do is to build the technology to pilot a digital wallet. And what this would do uh would enable an employer or a local
philanthropy or local government or even family members to donate towards a child's early childhood care and education. So there's a donation portal. The family can uh create a wallet for a child and then direct dollars directly
to uh early childhood providers and then the providers can register and receive payments. So we have selected a vendor. The vendor's name is rotation and we are looking to launch uh in the spring of next year. Uh uh and that would be again
we'll look to kind of we'll the the the governor will be talking with businesses. We'll engage with the foundation and ready regions thinking through who might be interested in uh piloting and using this technology. Okay. What's next here? Um we really
excited the team is out and about doing what we call ready region deep dives. If you ever if you are the type of person who loves the state of the state and wants to go deep on data you can uh we have an each of the ready regions. Our VQB5 team does a fantastic in
partnership with the ready regions deep dive and they look at all of the data from last year. We are continuing to think and you know about how we have use all of this new information and support whether it's our improvement partners who provide coaching or support whether
it's higher ed partners who uh often offer the associates degree programs the early childhood education programs or whether it's uh our ready regions. How do we think about helping others to use this data to increase understanding, support improvement, and ultimately
drive investment with our new office of public provider public private provider services? Looking at how we make sure we continue to attract new providers and support existing providers to expand uh their capacity um and looking at kind of how we continue to engage the business
community. Um, and so we're kind of monitoring what's happening federally in terms of the new tax credit opportunities. Um, and we're continuing to work very closely with the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation who's supporting things like the shovel ready task force and the business roundt so
that we make sure that business is at the table as we think about how we can maximize all of the opportunity that early childhood presents for the state. All right, let me pause there um and see if there are any questions about my
faster version. Normally that is 59 minutes exactly. My faster version of the state of the state and see what questions folks may have before I turn it over to Jeff for a brief update on pre-ervice training.
I think I've given everybody enough time. This group's usually pretty uh on the ball about jumping in if they have questions or concerns. Um just real quickly before I do an update on pre-ervice. Um because I was not present uh this when we got started, I want to
do a quick introduction of a new staff person that we have with OCCHS, Amy Wrathbun. Um, oh, she just got kicked out of a meeting. So, >> technology at its best. >> Boy, that was a good timing. Yeah. >> Hello everyone. It's nice to meet you.
I'm Amy Wthbund, new the new director of OCCHS and I look forward to working with all of you. >> Uh, you know, when uh so like Jenna said, we we're having some training out in Palatan. We are kind of getting some of our staff together just we like doing crosspollinization is probably the best
way of saying it just to make sure we're all kind of on the same page. So Jenna was able to come out and uh chance for Amy to start meeting the team. Um so we'll do more introductions, you know, kind of as we go on, but we're really excited uh to have her as part of the team. We're also really excited about
some of the experience and um just education. She has lots of research experience. So we're really excited to capitalize on that and data processing. So jumping right in, next one, please on the pre-ervice training. So most of this
hopefully is just a reminder uh about what we're doing regarding the pre-ervice training. So as a reminder, H uh HB 1024 kind of in response to JLock recommendations, surveys, listening sessions, pretty much everybody agreed
it was time to give our pre-ervice training and update. Um, so the slide here is just basically kind of a what we're proposing, what we're working towards, what we're working with Penn State University to implement. Um, a
little bit of a tweak to this model. Um, and just want to kind of highlight that there will be a core section for everybody who's working in child care. Uh, whether it's a home or a center, that there'll be a core content for all ages. and listening to the feedback as
well as our own thought process, breaking the training out into modules, a centerbased module that will then be geared even further for birth to five training as well as school age training. So, we want to make sure that we're doing adequate uh thorough training but
not overkill for let's just say the high school freshman or I mean, excuse me, the college freshman that's just going to work a summer camp. Uh probably doesn't need to know much if anything about birth to five. So, we've got centerbased school age care, whereas a homebased program is going to need to
know all ages. Um, and so all of this will be less than 10 hours unless you take things that might not necessarily be applicable to you. Like if you take both the core content, the centerbased birth to five, centerbased school age,
and homebased, it's going to be a little bit over 10 hours. But for 99.9% of the staff um is going to be less than current 10 hours of training. Next please. So we are going to phase this in um and that is to get this going as
quickly as possible without sacrificing quality for um speed. So the pre-ervice core and the school age section or module will both be fully uh it's estimated the launch dates will be the end of January and then we'll do center
birth to five by April 30th and family day home birth through school age uh April 30th as well. Um questions or concerns about that before I transition into regulations. Again, hopefully this is nothing new and is a refresher, but
definitely want to give you all an opportunity for questions or concerns. Um, we're really really excited about this. Everybody who's working on it is like this is going to be some really nice stuff. It's going to be some clean information, newer videos, videos with
staff, uh, you know, that's from childcare providers here in Virginia as much as we can. Um, so it's little bit little bit a lot excited about where we're going with this. Next, please. So, licensing regulations. And this is a
mixed bag of a little bit of frustration, but a little bit of excitement. Um, we have been working on this. And I say we because pretty much everybody on this video right now has has had some play uh in whether it's updating the CDC standards, just kind of
working through background checks and general procedures. Um, so want to kind of talk about something quickly first is you might have seen in readiness connections some nor that have gone out and those noras have gone out as an
administrative necessity to combining the background check regulation with the general procedures. We are almost across the finish line with that. It is currently in the secretary's office. We're really hoping and I know a lot of people have been working behind the
scenes trying to get these moving. Um, and so once the general procedures and background checks come out of the secretary's office and goes through the governor's office, we'll be talking about implementing hopefully within the next three to six months. Again, there's
lots of variables in there, but we are uh cautiously optimistic that we will be able to get those u moving. The licensed child day center standards are also in the secretary's office. However, it's the proposed regulation
that is there. What that means is once it comes out of the secretary's office and is reviewed by the governors, it will be published for a 60-day public comment period. So, as a reminder, we did something innovative number of years ago. And in our NORA for these
regulations, we also gave out some proposed language. So we got a lot of good feedback. And so we are optimistic that the feedback now will just maybe be tweaks uh and that we won't get quite the feedback that we did the first time
because we did the heavy lift up front. Once it goes uh through public comment, we as the department will take it. We'll analyze public comments. will come back to you as ECAC saying here's here's the feedback suggested changes suggest we
move forward work with you board approval hopefully would come shortly thereafter and then we can kind of go through the remaining steps um so just to kind of level set that is probably looking to be another sixmonth process with the understanding that you know
general assembly is coming up so just to kind of let everyone know we still got a a little bit more um running to do with these regs before we're at the point of talking about implementation. Next, please. So, couple of things. Uh pretty much the
majority of this slide um is about the fasttrack for epinephrine. Um it is currently at the secretary's office and governor's office. Sometimes those are a little bit synonymous. It's a an official process, but the secretary's office and governor's office are looking
really really closely and talking to each other about that. Um once it comes out of there, there'll be a 30-day public comment um period will commence. Um there's still a lot of ambiguity about how this is going to move forward.
Um we're actually meeting um you know with the governor's office and secretary over the course of the next couple of weeks and so hopefully I have a better idea about where we are in that process um by the time we meet um yet again. So the last one the child care subsidy uh
exempt action um is we're kind of waiting for it to be published in the registar uh and then once that is done then we'll kind of be talking about uh an effective date. So, I'm going to pause there for questions about the
licensed child day center standards, general procedures background check. Remember, we're combining those. That's one regulation. Um, or the child care program subsidy exempt action. If you do have something that comes up later, absolutely feel free to reach
out. Uh, you know, just reach out to kind of anybody on the team. you can email me directly uh and we'll get some uh answers there. Um but we're excited about the potential. Things are looking good. We just got a little bit longer wait and hopefully can get some things rolling. Um and just for the record, as
soon as we have some ideas about implementation date, we'll be publishing things in the U readiness connections. will be doing training, in-person training, virtual trainings, webinars, uh, and we will do everything we can to
do to help everyone make sure they know what's upcoming as best we can. So, thanks. Uh, and, uh, Amy and I are going to stick around for a few more minutes. If you have some questions, we can do in chat, but then Amy and I are going to jump so we can kind of go back uh, to
doing some in-person uh, teams. I do see a chat. Uh give me one second. Will there be a lumpsum fee for background checks and other associated fees for the providers? Um we cannot do
any kind of lumpsum fee structure. Um background check costs are controlled by the office of background check regulation and other states. Um so right now we VODE are not charging any fees for anything. Um we aren't charging fees. We
aren't doing um civil penalties right now. We're doing negative action through other effective ways. We're not charging fees for a new application. So the fees that we're talking about for background checks that will start in January are for OBI office of background check as it
pertains to fingerprinting. So there's still been a charge for the um portability. There's a charge for CRS. Um, and the background check fees that will start up are just for OBI and state police and FBI. Um, and there's not a
good way to lump that together. Um, I've mentioned in the past that we're looking to have OBI do the out ofstate background checks. That might change fees a little bit in terms of being able to lump together. We're not real sure, but at this time it's probably best to
say we don't see any lumping of things together. Jenna, anything else on that? I think I've covered it, but I just want to make sure. >> Yeah. No, I think that's that's right. And and uh there's not much flexibility we have in terms of uh this is not uh
we're just we're just the messenger here on many of these on these fees. >> Any other questions? really enjoyed seeing many of you uh on Tuesday. Congratulations for those who are honored. Um just keep up the good work and uh as always if something comes
up related to health and safety, please please please reach out to us and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks. >> All right, we'll turn it over to Becca. >> All right. Um so uh I think uh we have
discussed uh the our shift in uh IT systems for attendance tracking uh in the subsidy program with this body before. Um so I'm going to keep my updates uh pretty brief today. Um but please do uh feel free to drop questions in the chat or come off mute um as we go
here if you have uh uh any additional um uh questions as we go. If you'll jump to the next slide, please Emma. Um, so just as a reminder, uh, our our new, uh, attendance tracking system is called Child Care Pass, and that stands for
program attendance and schedule system. um which is a an applicationbased uh software program uh that will allow us to um really simplify uh and reduce the administrative burden associated
with tracking attendance both for families and for providers um uh and um uh will uh really improve our visibility into attendance data looking ahead. Um so that system
launches on December 1. All providers and families will begin using um PASS in one form or another um on December 1st. Um those of you that are providers should be receiving communications from
Kinder Systems um who is our our vendor on this project, a national leader in in childcare technology solutions. Um and uh if you're not, please do reach out to me so that we can make sure uh that we've got the right email address for
you. Um but we are uh you know getting uh information out about uh activating accounts and um uh and uh getting providers and families trained to use the system. Um and we'll be providing a ton of updates uh coming up here and I
I'll talk about those more um uh momentarily. If you'll jump ahead to the next slide, Emma. Um, so I want to just quickly talk through some of the the key features of PASS that we're really excited about. And again, I don't think that this is going to be review for many
of you. Um, but just want to sort of reiterate some of these uh these these key points um uh as we are getting closer and closer to implementation. Um so one of the things was a that was a big priority for us as we were thinking
about the implementation of this system is that we wanted to um minimize change for as many providers as possible in terms of um allowing them to continue to use uh the system that they currently use for tracking attendance to the
extent possible. Um and so uh currently Kinder Systems has uh somewhere in the ballpark of 23 to 25 uh partner child care management systems um that they integrate with and um providers that are currently using a a partner system will
be able to continue using that system in order to track attendance for families. Um so there will be uh a nightly data exchange. Um the state will only get data um for children that are enrolled in the child care subsidy program. Um
and um uh and that will really the extent to which families are having to record attendance multiple times and that providers are having to track attendance in multiple places um uh looking ahead. Um, so there'll be some targeted resources and trainings for
providers that are um going to be creating a an account in PASS, but really are going to continue using the system that they're currently using as their primary system of record. Now, another group of providers will be using PASS as their primary tool. Um and for
those something that we felt uh very strongly about again was that um there needed to be multiple modalities to record attendance to minimize the likelihood that there are missed records um and to uh promote accuracy um and uh
and and consistency in recording. So um uh basically what that will look like is um all providers can have attendance recorded on a tablet at their site. That is something that the state will provide to eligible providers at no cost if
providers want them or you can use a tablet of your own if you'd prefer to do that. Um, and families can uh sign in using uh one of the sort of platforms as part of the suite of the Kinder Systems tools um to check their children in.
Families can also uh designate other uh trusted adults to check their children in and out. say it's a babysitter or a grandparent, a neighbor, a carpool buddy, right? We recognize that it is not always the primary parent that is is dropping the child off or picking them
up. Um, and this system actually enables that in the uh the technology functionality so that there is no passing a card back and forth or um or anything along those lines um when it is not the the parent that is is uh doing
drop off or pickup. Um, parents can also use a QR code on their cell phone. Um, and so there will be, you know, instructions on, uh, how parents can download that app, where providers need to post the information. Um, and, um, and and sponsors, those those other
design, um, can use the QR code as well. So um and then if uh all else fails, providers will be able to record attendance in past themselves um in order to uh again eliminate the extent to which there are missed records. Um
and again that that uh ability for multiple actors and multiple modalities for attendance recording was a big priority for us going into this design effort. recognizing the really big challenges that um uh the current system
presents where only one or two people are able to record attendance and if they forget it it it's a nightmare for everybody involved to get caught up. Um another feature of this system is that uh it can be used to record attendance
for all enrolled children including those that are private pay. Um and uh and that'll enable providers to really be able to use this as their primary attendance tracking system if they want to. Um and that is totally optional. Um
and that is, you know, in no way is is an obligation, but it's a it's a nice feature for for providers that might not have an IT system for this purpose um uh to use looking ahead. Um there are also some nice features in the system like
automated notifications to remind providers and to remind families if attendance was missed. Um and that way uh either the the provider or the family can log that attendance um uh within the the kind of 8day look back period um
again to ensure that we've got those consistent records. Um providers are also going to be able to enter their operating schedules. Um and that means that um you will uh be able to uh
indicate the days that you are open and the days that you are closed as well as the the times that you are open and closed. Um that eliminates uh errors in attendance recording. Right? You will be able to indicate presence on days when a provider is not open and operating. But
it also means that uh those uh what are pre are currently sort of hardcoded paid holidays um in our our existing system uh you all will be able to determine when you want to get paid for those paid days of closure. So if you are a site
and you're not closed on uh you know just as an example Veterans Day and you would like to use that paid holiday on another day you can do that. that that is, you know, your your discretion. Um, and we're hoping that that flexibility
will really enable providers to kind of maximize the the paid days of closure that are available to them rather than sort of forcing the state holiday schedule on on providers that that you know, I know from my own experience, my provider doesn't operate on on that
state holiday schedule. Um and then um I know a a topic that has come up in this body before um is is the issue around access to Wi-Fi. So um the uh the system and and tablets can operate off of Wi-Fi
or or without internet um for uh an indefinite period of time, but they've got to be synced on a regular basis in order for that to be connected to or the the data to be transmitted to VDOE. So that that sort of um ability for the
data to be recorded and stored locally is is a really important feature particularly for those of you that are in you know Wi-Fi deserts or who lack reliable access to to the internet or just for random happenstances when internet goes out. Um uh but they do
need to be synced regularly and I know that's a concern that's come up that we've not been able to track down sort of a a specific sort of number of providers that this might impact. um would ask if you are aware of sites that might have this challenge um please do
have them reach out to us. We're trying to get an assessment of the um uh the number of sites that this would be a challenge for so that we can begin um sort of troubleshooting this this issue um looking ahead. And I know we've been syncing up with our VQB5 team on this
and and we're only aware of two providers that had to do the the paper entry into VQB5 for registration in the last year. Um and so uh but recognize that that is also a more kind of oneoff uh need than an ongoing attendance
tracking. So again uh we definitely ask um for folks to reach out to us if this is an anticipated painoint. And then something that we're especially excited about and and the the single bullet on this slide doesn't really do it justice is the the really detailed
and real time data that this system is going to be able to provide to VDOE. um because of um some of the features of the current system, there's both a a lack of uh sort of nuanced or um uh
complex reporting that we're able to access and there are also just be given the the user challenges of of the current system. there are some concerns that we have about the reliability of the data in the system and and I think you all uh that that are providers or or
that work with families, you know, know that as well as as we do, if if not even better. And so we're really excited to be able to have a platform that um has some uh controls that will um promote more accurate and consistent recording
which makes the data inherently better quality, but then also to be able to access that data in real time um and in the sort of brokenout ways that will enable us to both um make some informed policy decisions as we continue to think about what do we need to do to maximize
resources um and and ensure that children that are um participating in the program are really using the services. Um but that also will allow us to draw connections and conclusions with our um uh our child level um outcome
data and our uh classroom quality data down the line. Right? We all know inherently that in order for a child to really uh benefit from a highquality early childhood classroom experience, they have to be physically present. they've got to be in the classroom. Um,
and having, you know, better, more detailed, uh, data on attendance, uh, will help us to draw some connections around, you know, dosage or participation levels, um, and implications for, uh, child outcomes down the line um, in a way that that
we're really excited about. Next slide, please. Um, so like I said, if you are a provider, you hopefully should have been getting contacted by Kinder Systems, should be hearing about this system from
BDOE. Um, uh, this slide highlights a few upcoming milestones over the course of the next couple months leading up to go live. This is a snapshot. It's not, uh, you know, a super in the weeds detailed, um, though those are are coming, uh, very soon. Um, but this
week, uh, we started, uh, registering providers for the training series that will begin in November. Um, so you should have gotten an email from Kinder Systems inviting you to register for training opportunities next month. Um, later this month, uh, Kinder Systems is
going to start shipping tablets to providers if, um, if you are a provider that that wanted a tablet. um and and instructions and information about that will be coming to providers individually uh with tracking information and more details on on shipment so that folks can
be prepared and aware to receive those. Um uh beginning in November, we will have um uh uh virtual trainings and office hours that will be ongoing into December. Right? It was really important that we had these both leading up to but
also after the launch of the system recognizing that it is one thing to prep folks to use it and it is another to start using it and that folks might need some continued assistance or might need um opportunities for additional touch points with um the the uh IT vendor
going into um uh or following the launch of the system just to make sure everything is up and running smoothly. Um and so those trainings will be uh a little different depending on whether you are using your current CCMS, your current management system and
transmitting your data to PASS or whether you are using PASS as your primary system. Um and so when you're looking at the registration opportunities, providers are really going to want to kind of pay attention to the right opportunity for them. Um there will also be weekly office hours.
So, if folks are having kind of specific troubleshooting needs, uh the office hours are a great opportunity to get some hands-on assistance um with those challenges. Um and and starting November 3rd, folks will also be able to start registering for accounts and pass. So,
the idea is that um ideally most folks will be able to have their tablet, create their account, and do their training with sort of all of the equipment and materials um on hand. Um the last day that we will be accepting
any attendance in the current system is November 30th. Um and starting on December 1, we will uh pass launches and we'll start recording attendance in in pass. Um and more details will be coming up um on this uh uh uh or more
information I should say more detailed information will be uh uh coming out soon. Um but I want to mention to you all that we are planning for and accounting for uh right some bumps in the road and and we'll be having a longer look back period for recording
attendance um at the very beginning of the system launch just to ensure that we are able to get all attendance records you know starting on December 1st in the system um and that uh you know IT related challenges or account
registration challenges are not the reason that folks can't get their attendance, you know, incorporated into the system effectively. Um, we'll also be getting information out to you all um from the current uh attendance tracking system vendor conduit about what to do
with your POS machines. Um, which is nothing. You can get rid of them. You don't have to send them back. They they actually don't want them back. And um and so uh but we they will be communicating that directly with providers um and and we'll be making sure that we post that communication
online so that it's in an accessible place. Um and um and are going to be kind of ramping up our communications on this um just you know as we get closer and closer to the launch. Um so please do keep an eye out for readiness connections. Um, there will be weekly
updates on past leading up to December 1st and and thereafter. Um, and we're really going to be getting notices out by email on key dates and activities. Um, again, including those training schedules for providers, um, resources
for families. We know that uh, you know, we'll be sending information directly to families, but we also know that families are going to come directly to providers and are going to want to um, reach out to you all for assistance. And so we'll be making sure that um re uh family related resources are uh getting shared
with our providers as well as with our ready region partners um and uh and more instructions on sort of the decommissioning or closing out of the current system as well. Um uh our um our website vapass.info
has um of some ondemand training videos and resources um uh ready to go as well. Um and uh we'll be adding more details, more resources to that site as they become available. Any questions before we move on to the
next section? I'll pull the chat up to see if they >> uh Becca, I have one question. >> Sure. the uh with the virtual trainings would a center director um need can the can a center director do the resource
trainings that are offered in lie of the virtual trainings or is there a need to do both? So the the trainings are all 100% optional. Um and so um there will be like recorded ondemand trainings and
those are sort of more in those uh little like snippety um uh very modulebased training uh formats where >> maybe just get in and answer a specific question. >> Exactly. That's exactly right, Clark. Um
and so um if you there will also be written instructions on how to do all the things that the trainings are going to tell providers how to do. This is a very good question. So this is all completely optional, right? If you can use the resources that are available sort of asynchronously to get your
account set up, get logged into your tablet and get all squared away. You don't need to participate in any of the trainings. Um, so it it it's totally um at your discretion and based on your comfort level with, you know, using a new system. >> Great. Great. Thank you.
>> Yeah. Any other questions? >> Becca, quick question. For the providers that aren't techsavvy, is there any paper format that they could use to help them with this new system? So there will be no paper submission of
attendance going forward. Um there will be some like PDF sort of guides on how to um set up an account and and things along those lines. Um, and that's also a great opportunity for folks to go to
office hours um, in terms of um, uh, getting some one-on-one assistance with something they might be experiencing challenges with. Um, and Jon, we can make sure that that all of our our ready region partners are getting act uh,
information about the trainings as well, should you all want to be able to kind of poke around and see what's available. um should you all be getting questions from providers and want to be able to point them in the right direction. Um but you know this will be a a fully
virtual system with no sort of real mechanism for manual attendance going forward. Um and um you know we're hopeful that in general it will be families that are recording attendance. Right? That's the general expectation that folks are using their smartphones,
using that QR code um or using the on-site tablet if needed. Um and providers are really going to be mostly um or or are primarily charged with being able to check attendance records in the system, right? Log into their account and navigate sort of the back end of the platform. And the trainings
will cover sort of all of that that functionality as as will those they call them quick reference guides um or quick reference uh checks uh QRC's um these documents online that sort of have the very quick snapshots of if you need to
do this very specific thing here's how you do it. >> Thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Um Becca how parents are going to be informed of these changes? >> Yep. So, we are working on getting some
communications out to families with a a heads up that um you know, this this shift is coming. Um and um you know, we are trying to strike the balance between getting enough information out but not getting ahead of ourselves, right? We
don't want families to um uh unintentionally stop recording on Conduit, right? they've got to keep using conduit right up to the very end, that November 30th date. Um, which is the the the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, just for for uh those of us
that are not calendar oriented. Um, so we're actually, you know, cautiously optimistic that uh the the sort of need and use of the system will peter down, right, given the the holiday that weekend. Um, expect that many sites are going to be closed. Of course, not all.
And we know that many many folks still need care on the weekends or through holidays. Um but generally we see a a drop in utilization around you know holiday periods. Um and so um uh but we
will be sending communications directly from VDOE. We'll be sharing all of those communications with local case workers in the department of social services so that if they get questions from families they are aware. Um and then um uh we'll
also, you know, as I I indicated, be providing all of those family communications to providers, but then also giving providers sort of family facing tools that they can use or offer to families. Um again, so that that they've got um uh what they need to know
um whether they will whether the only instruction is to stop using your your swipe card, right? or whether the instruction is both to stop using your swipe card and use this new system going forward because obviously that'll differ a little bit based on whether the an individual site is using their childcare
management system or not if they're going to use pass. >> Thank you. Any other questions? appreciate these from you all. It's like you're in our brains. We are
working hard to get all of these uh that this information out to out to our partners and and families and providers. So, huge thanks to the team who's been um got their heads down uh and and are not with us on the call right now, but um who are are working hard to to keep
things moving here. All right. Well, you all have um my information. If you do have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to reach out and and again, please keep an eye out uh in your emails for for more to come here. >> Excellent. Thank you, Becca. Um thank
you members for your very thoughtful questions. uh you know we have had a lot of of of technology implementation uh this season whether it's implementing VA connects which you know came with some challenges at the outset uh some of
the shifts in terms of co-ayments and all of that technology and then this uh is how we will finish out the year. So in advance just uh a thank you and appreciation. Ultimately the these these technologies help our systems work
better. I know it doesn't feel feel like that in the beginning and I know our teams work very hard to anticipate what um might go wrong and how to address those. But when you as we've talked about when you implement s big systems
across thousands of end users um it is you really really challenging to kind of uh dot every eye and cross every tea and we just appreciate the the patience um of everybody as we are uh if we can't make it perfect at the outset
just want to be really responsive um and in and improving improving it. Um I wanted to provide everybody with a update on the workg group that looked at the future of uh care for school age children in Virginia. Yep. If we can
move to the next slide please. We um are required to produce a report. It does not go to the board of education. It actually is expected to go to the commission um and to the governor and general assembly. But what we've tried
to do is in our thoughtful stewardship uh of both this entity and the commission making sure when there are relevant things that both uh groups should see that um that you are you will receive an update on this. So um this is
still a work in progress but wanted to share with you what uh occurred this summer and what will be going to the commission and ultimately into a report this fall. uh the this workg group and report were required um by uh budget and
law. So, Senate Bill 1084, which created a new exemption for out of school time programs, required a work group and a report by December 1st. And the early childhood section of the budget that is
looking at uh school age care and child subsidy uh required us to take a look at access cost and quality. And so we have combined those two charges and created and uh ran a work group over the course
of the summer. Next slide please. Um the group uh came together. We did require in-person three in-person meetings because of the newness of uh this group. we hadn't necessarily had um uh a formal
convening of uh stakeholders who are explicitly focused on school age time and so we had everybody come in person and we looked at the system the landscape the strengths the areas for improvement. We discussed uh models and
best practices and began to set the vision for the future about a school time and then we looked and kind of went through uh the short and long-term recommendations. There were lots of ice breakers. There were post-it notes.
There were lots of ideas with the ultimate goal being to produce a report with broad recommendations, examples of activities and then to uh put that out there. So sometimes we have reports and
then the VDOE takes action after those reports and other times we have reports and we just make sure that we are public with the findings of that report and this is an example of of that. So we wanted you all to be aware of that um
and kind of again sort of how it came together. There is not an explicit action needed by this body or by the DOE following this or the board of education, but just wanted to be sure you were aware. Next slide, please. So,
um, we had everybody talk in depth about, uh, health and safety. So, really thinking through what should the health and safety expectations be for the incredible array of programs that serve kids, you typically from the ages of 6
to 12. uh across sort of out of school time really after school before school and summers. We talked about quality and the kind of different uh current existing measurements some of the work by vost and then where there were some
gaps. There was even talk of a VQB12 um uh or kind of thinking about an extension of of a VQB5. Um and then we talked about access and funding and um just that there's uh uh
similar to what we see in early childhood a scarcity of resources available and probably far more many kids particularly in working families who could benefit from uh out of school time um and uh services, but there's just not enough slots or dollars um
available. So we see kind of their pictures of some of the the the the the post-it notes and all the many ideas that that came forward. Next slide please. So um as we look at these groups and we will be sure to share with this body the final report
after we go to the commission. But a couple of key things just to highlight in these areas. So uh we recognize that there's a lot of complexity in how we think about health and safety with school age. Now, we have a pretty complicated set section of law on
exemptions and sort of knowing what what all of this means and almost to Siccilia's point about, you know, helping families understand that was one potential area that we could work on. We also talked about kind of uh more supports from VDOE around health and
safety and then a range of ideas on should we have more alternatives to lensure and what kind of potential changes uh to regulations and statutes might we want. You'll see in the report that there is not um we're we were not
necessarily asking for a consensus around like one particular idea, but instead wanted to gather the range of opinions. And you'll see that there's the different people had different perspectives on how kind of how many and what changes they might want to see in
terms of law and regulations on quality. Um there was a lot of talk about how we you know do or do not measure that and how to think about that in a way that would both um you know potentially elevate the important quality elements of out of school time and make that more
consistent statewide. Um but also recognizing that that would entail quite a bit of work, right? that there's um some great uh foundational work around quality and out of school time, but from collecting that data to supporting people to be successful um that that
would, you know, involve or kind of necessitate, you know, a pretty comprehensive multi-year strategy. But you'll see in that section some really interesting ideas related to that. And I think we heard overall a desire uh and sort of even a little bit of jealousy I
might say um from our out of schooltime providers on all the incredible quality measurement and improvement work that the early childhood sector has done in recent years and some of our partners who are familiar with the work that you all done have done really see that as a
model um which is again flattering to each of us um each of you who've done this important work and then on access, really thinking about how do we maximize every dollar that exists, the need to do fiscal maps and better understand all of
the many sources. In some ways, even though the early childhood landscape is complicated where we're we're down to kind of, you know, four or five key funding sources, right? um state federal and some consistency there versus out of school time involves a lot more
different sources and is is quite a bit more complicated and then kind of beginning to think about what additional levers might might be available. So really uh exciting and interesting ideas. I know some of you do offer out of school time and so we'll continue to
monitor this. anything that would directly affect um regulations or or uh that would go to the board would of course come to this body. But at this point in time, this is not this is not calling for any explicit action. This is
just a report that is a set of recommendations and we will send this to you uh uh once this goes to the governor and general assembly later this fall. Any questions about this? Next slide, please.
All right, I think we saved the best for last. Um, but just really excited to share with you, if we can move one slide, please uh where we are uh with the roll out of uh the second year of
VQB5 quality profile. So, as you all know, we moved this meeting so that we could have the governor announce the roll out on Tuesday at a uh highquality site uh here in Richmond and really live
stream his remarks along with remarks from a parent, a business leader um and uh some of our other elected officials in what is truly a celebration of the incredible public private partnerships and work that you all do every single
day. Um uh we completed uh this a very successful year from the roll out of the first year last fall to making sure that 100% of publicly funded programs are participating this year and ultimately
getting all these observations done for more than 11,300 classrooms. So a big year for us. Um, and Tuesday really marked a celebration of not only the results of these
profiles, but the entirety of this work over the year. Next slide, please. Um, our key messages and hopefully if you've seen or heard any media or senior ready agents, we were sort of this is what we are emphasizing. Um, it was a success
second successful year. Hard to say that three times fast. um in measuring quality to improve child outcomes at scale. Um the VQB5 quality profile website has had over a 100,000 views in the last year and had um it is now up to
125,000 views uh thanks to some of the activity of the last few weeks. We are truly showing the excellence of the work that you're doing and we're excited to see so much improvement from year one to
year two. And we thanks to the recommendations coming out of this body which then ultimately went to the board and made it into the guidelines where we sort of have honor role designations for nearly 500 sites 494 to be precise
across the commonwealth that uh recognize excellence highquality infant toddler programming and significant improvement. We also know even with those incredible sites that across the board across our 3,293
sites that received profiles, the portion of them that were in year 1 and year two that across the board we had improvement in uh teacher child interactions and use of curriculum. And all of this is made um did we lose there?
Oh, this is a first. Okay, let's go back to our slides. The real question is, can I do this from from from memory? Uh, only a few a few days in. Um, but all of this is made more exciting by the fact that we're we
have more publicly funded private providers than ever before and we're serving more kids um than ever before. So we uh know that um uh that this is is
truly an accomplishment to not only grow and get bigger but to be meeting those um levels of uh quality is is just a a a very big um accomplishment. Um okay we
we back up here. Hi. Um, I think someone is accidentally sharing their calendar. I'm not sure whose that is. Um, but it looks like someone accidentally took over screen share. Um, does anyone recognize that
calendar and try to take back over too? >> I have it as maybe it's Melinda. Did that. That's what that's the name that popped up on my screen. Melinda, is there any chance that you might have inadvertently shared that?
>> I can try to take back over as well. Let's see. >> Trying to send that information to my CEO actually. So, yeah, that was probably me. >> Okay, I think I'm able to override that. So, apologies. I did not was not able to
see that it was not still sharing. >> No worries. >> Thank you. All right. That's a That's a new one for us. I've not seen that before. Okay. >> I didn't know that could happen. >> I know. Melinda, they're keeping it interesting. I like it. I like it. Okay.
Um, so back to be five profiles. I think Emma, we are on that. Yeah, right there. Perfect. Um, and if we could move to that next slide. Excellent. Okay. So, um, huge accomplishments, 3,400 sites and, um, more sites than last year. And
we show this map to our uh legislators and community stakeholders saying that in every city and county in Virginia that we have BQB5 uh sites. And that's just so important as we think about that this system impacts every single one of
our of our communities. Next slide, please. Um, we uh released 3,293 quality profiles on Tuesday on this website. It did a refresh and so they've now if you look at it now and it's
listed there if you want to click on it. Well, maybe don't click on it on your screen because who knows what happened. We might actually take us all there. Um, but is uh we now have historic rating information for all of our sites. uh our honor rolls are indicated on the
website. There's uh uh more downloadable data files and then we worked on our search and sorting. So, our folks were up as early as 3 in the morning uh pushing go on making sure that this site was ready to go on Tuesday. And as I noted, we had 9,600
views in that first 24 hours alone. So just showing us how many parents and stakeholders are going to this site to find out information about our programs. Next slide please. Um the honor roles and this should look very familiar to this body as you all
are ultimately the ones who endorse this uh this concept as to be part of the VQB5 profiles. Um do a couple of really important things. Obviously, you we evaluate and provide a numerical
uh and rating for all of our 3,293 sites, but we also wanted to can do a couple of other things with the honor roles. We wanted to elevate excellence and truly recognize those programs that were exceeding expectations. And because
we use a national rigorous model or or tool, right, the class system of observations, we know that sites that earn these high ratings can truly be considered national exemplars. And so, not only providing them with an exceeds expectation rating, but also uh
recognizing them on the excellence honor role. We also know that we have more demand than ever before for infant and toddler options and that um these are sometimes the most not sometimes generally speaking the most expensive classrooms to run. Um this often
requires the most you know parental trust in terms of dropping off your baby uh typically your nonverbal baby um in a in a setting where you know their entire care right is up to up to our infant and toddler providers. And so these honor
roles really recognize the top 10% those top scores in terms of infant and toddler interactions. We also knew as we looked at the data that there are some folks who are are might be pretty far off from uh exceeds expectations and we
wanted to make sure that we were truly insenting or motivating continual improvement. And so the improvement honor role represents of all of the folks who made improvement from 24 from 23 24 to 24 25 who is in that top 10%
who's making those greatest gains um in terms of improving their in their interactions and then ultimately this becomes a way to put this information at at fing at parents fingertips. And so understanding um okay maybe this isn't the highest scoring site in my community
but they're making tremendous improvement and I'm really proud of them or I'm a parent of an infant and toddler and I really want to know sort of where I can find the highest of of of quality interactions for my my littlest learners. So these are the benefits of
these honor roles in addition to all of the information right the you know the the 31,000 observations and the 2.2 two million minutes of insight that may be uh that is contained in these in the in in in this in this information in this website. Next slide please. Um so
everyone receives a quality rating certificate. Um important and this is optional. We encourage folks to frame it so you can talk with parents about what it means to be part of VQB5 and to have these observations and to have these incentives for using curriculum as well
as those new honoral certificates um and displaying them as optional, but we're hopeful that folks will put those up, post them on their on their on their social media, put them in their centers or homes um and truly recognize the incredible work that they've done. Next slide, please.
Um, you've heard me talk about this before, but these are the specific number on how many observations we completed. The incredible work of our ready regions that sort of collectively uh completed 22,625
class observations uh and then the 8,600 and change of the external observations for 31,258 class observations. I you know I'm the one who gets the privilege of sort of talking with leaders from other states and people's literally fall people
literally fall out of their chairs when I tell them how many class observations that you all have uh uh conducted and how much feedback has been provided to our educators. They often ask me whether I added an extra zero. They're like may maybe you did 3100 right class
observations last year. That feels like a lot. And I say no you know we did 31,000. Um, and that that just means sort of not only having so much information about what kids are experiencing and be able to share that with parents, but so much more feedback
for our educators and helping to support them to improve. Next slide, please. We also know if you look over time and so this just looks at from 21 the beginning of the so excuse me from the 2122 year up until uh last year how much
improvement we've seen in use of quality curriculum. So this is for family day homes and centers. You may remember that for uh school programs and head start they're required to use curriculum but where it's been optional thanks to VQB5 and some of the supports that the state
has provided. you see double-digit gains in the number of family day home and center-based classrooms choosing to use curriculum. Next slide, please. Uh we're also excited that we have more VKRP being used. And so the reason this is
important is VKRP, the preschool tool, looks at math, early literacy, social skills, and self-regulation for three and four year olds. It's required for Virginia preschool initiative and mixed delivery and optional for head start and for any of our programs that take
childcare subsidy. Um we are by using more and more of it including that those places where it's required and encouraging more programs to use it optionally. It helps us understand not only the quality of the interactions happening in those classrooms, what curriculum is being used, but kind of
what we know about kids, what they're able to do, what they're learning, and how much they're growing over the course of the year. And so, we'll be able to use this data in combination with some of the other data to truly help individualize uh supports and instruction for kids
while we're also using the other data to individualize the support for educators. So you can see how kind of all these different data points are coming together. Preschool VRP continues to be optional, but we're hopeful that we can get more and more childare providers and family childcare providers to use it to
support kids to learn and grow and thrive. As a caveat or as a golden rule here, we do not there are never high stakes, no stakes attached to VKRP. Um you know the class measure is the only that and curriculum are the only
measures used for VQB5. This just helps us better support the unique and individualized needs of kids. Um, we continue to support uh those k those sort of sites in greatest need. We had 51 sites last year that received need support. I'm very pleased to
announce that all of those sites moved out of need support and into meets expectation this year. And that's in large part thanks to the work of the VDOE quality consultants and the Virginia Early Childhood Consultation. So this work has already begun uh for a
handful of sites this year. But from the outset, the second we see those lower scores um making sure that we are going in providing intensive support to these need support sites to better understand the importance of teacher child interaction, how the class works and to
focus in on those social emotional environments. and a lot of coaching, professional development and technical assistance is how we help make that improve. We also offer free resources and quarterly webinars to all the QB5 programs as well as our ECE resource
hub. So we focus in on those places that need the most support, right? So that know what we ultimately can sort of promise to parents no matter where you go in the state that you'll meet a certain level of quality. But those we have free resources for everybody who's part of EQB5 uh as well.
Next slide please. Uh this was the launch of VA connects which connects LinkB5 the literacy screener and VKRP and as we talked a little bit about this earlier a big accomplishment and and being able to understand the power of
the work that you're doing and it's long short and long-term impact on kids. Um and so that's a big accomplishment for the the state. I had the opportunity to share this uh with other states and folks just started spontaneously clapping. There's just so few examples
in our country right now of sort of all of these data systems working together. Um and so they were just so very impressed with what you all are doing here in Virginia. Uh and supporting families to understand VQB5 uh is really key. And so just a set
of resources that we wanted to put back in front of you. will continue to work with the ready regions to make this sort of more understandable to families uh so that um they know that they're choosing quality um and that that sort of encourages more and more providers to be
a part of EQB5. Okay, this is just a quick snapshot on the results from this this year. uh and again with a encouraging folks to attend a region a ready region deep dive if you
want to go really in depth here. So more sites participating than last year and we went up to 99% of sites meeting or exceeding the state's quality expectations. So you'll see the chart here gives you a sense of more sites in
the exceeds expectations uh uh 101 up from 79 more sites in the meets expectations and uh and the place where we want to go in the opposite direction fewer sites in the need support category. Um and so we do we did have 25 sites that fell in that category uh this
year but none of those were the 51 who we supported last year. So hopefully we can help these sites get into meets expectation and keep anybody from going back into that category. Uh next year you'll see that we had excellence and uh
quality across all of our settings. So you see we've got exceeds expectation. We've got good representation from public schools 39 of the 101, family day homes 36 of the 101 and child care centers 26 of the 101. So really truly
being able to say we have national exemplars. It doesn't matter the type of building or the funding source that these may be found across all of our public private settings. You see, the same is true for meat's expectation. That's such an important message and the reason why we wanted to have different
provider types in the room with the governor earlier this week so that we don't stereotype quality as being limited to a particular type of program that but truly recognize it takes all of us and that we have national exemplars across our different early childhood
settings. Next slide, please. Uh this gives you a sense of the improvement and so our statewide average not only do we have 99% of programs meeting the expectation but our statewide average in terms of our site
score also increased up to 592 which is four points higher than last year's average. You see across the different site types that there's an improvement. So you'll see it's the average rating for this year as compared to the average rating for last year. And then you see
the change in that final column. So you see improvement in public schools, family day homes, and child care centers. And you'll see kind of uh pretty the most improvement in terms of points um in family day homes. you'll see that those averages uh there's also
that they're kind of the family day homes also were uh uh you know potentially slightly lower on average but then you see those really significant gains. So that kind of gives you a sense of where programs are um and also recognizing that all of our program
types on average made improvement. uh as we talked about these are the different honor roles and um the kind of the spec the specific criteria for them. So you've got that in one place. I won't read every word on that slide but just
understanding kind of the detail about those honor roles and this gives you a sense. We're very pleased uh to announce that all program types and all ready regions and all program types and all ready regions were
represented uh on the VQB5 honor roles. And so as you look at this, you'll see the ready regions and that first column and then you'll see the centers, the family day homes, and the public schools. And you'll see kind of the percentage of the rated sites that made that honor role. So again, across the
board, every community in the Commonwealth, every region should feel real pride and the accomplishments of um of its early childhood partner sites. uh a this gives you a sense of the type and frequency of honor role recipency. I
wanted to note that we had um uh this is the number of honor roll sites and then you'll see kind of who received one honor role, two honor roles and three honor roles. Um and so we had some sites that uh including someone who is on this
call today who received all three honor roles and that is truly uh a uh an extraordinary uh accomplishment. Okay, before I jump into what's next, I'd like to take a moment just to recognize uh if I could have a moment of
privilege those folks um who have uh on on this group today who have uh been designated for the honor role. I will start uh with the site leader for the site and I hope she starts smiling now.
um who uh received and earned rather all three honor roles. So creative learning ski uh school received the infant toddler the improvement and the excellence honor role and is in a
rarified group of 19 sites statewide that receive that honor. So, please, if we could join me in clapping and well and sort of uh congratulating Cecilia Suarez for what is an extraordinary accomplishment. Cecilia, I'd like to say
anything. >> I I'm very excited. I was so happy to learn that we made it. Um, our love is with the children. So, this is what we do. Try to do our best for the for the children.
>> Oh, Cecilia, thank you. I would like to note as a point of privilege that Miss Suarez was at points had some concerns about this system and let us know in the early days about uh some of the the the the very gave us some very useful
feedback on how to think about rolling out class and making it work for all programs. And I just think that really to see that to see that level of improvement and commitment, Miss Hores, it has always been about the children, but your ability to step up and to both
help the state um to do this well and to implement this well while providing uh you know such high quality uh care and education to your children and families is is is truly an accomplishment. And I I think back to um how hard this was in
the beginning and how candid you were with your feedback and really appreciate that and that has helped us make this system that much that much stronger. Uh, I'd also like to take a moment to uh recognize uh Northern Virginia Family
Services Early Head Start at the Vermont Center uh which earned the improvement and infant toddler uh honor roles um and had their other sites meet expectations. So, congratulations to uh Melinda and
Northern Virginia Family Services for that accomplishment. Very exciting. Melinda, would you like to say anything? >> Just that it's all about the children. >> Excellent. >> Excellent. >> Uh that is fantastic. I then want to
recognize um and I've got a couple of these so I'll I'll I'll I'll go through uh these but these are other uh early childhood advisory commission members whose either sites or um they represent school divisions that they had sites
within their school division uh earned honor roles. So we have Jennifer Parish and Peak Childhood Center who earned infant toddler honor role. Cheryl Mormon and the blessings from above family day home infant uh infant toddler honor
role. Uh steps Head Start Amelia and Jessica Leman who received improvement honor roll. Uh Mount Eagle Elementary uh in in um uh Fairfax uh received excellence honor roll. Cardinal Forest
Elementary improvement honor roll. Uh Belvadier Elementary improvement honor roll. Woodley Hills Elementary improvement honor roll center ridge uh both excellence and improvement and I've got January Tekash representing them and
then we have uh Daryl Turner and just a recognition for Richmond public schools and uh JB Fiser uh elementary school uh and Miss Johnson and all of the folks at JB Fischer who receive excellent honor roles. So, just really exciting as we
ask the team to look at uh who is represented here on the early childhood advisory committee meeting and just all of the incredible work happening within your divisions, your Head Start grantees uh and your site. um in a in a moment of
of of just recognizing that. I also note that as I looked across all of our members, everybody is is meeting or exceeding expectations and just really appreciate your commitment to the children um and to being models for the
rest of the state in not only providing the highest of quality experiences, but also spending your time, dedicating your time to helping us do this work better for the 3,293 sites across the state. Darl, I see your arm, your hand is raised, rather. Let me
see to you. >> Hey, can everybody hear me? >> Yeah. >> Okay, good. I want to say my my classroom is finally child-free, so I can, you know, kind of raise my hand, you know, now. Um, but,
you know, I just wanted to say that, you know, I'm very proud of my colleague at JB Fischer. Um, I know on Tuesday, you know, they had announced, you know, when they announced Fiser, you know, I I was a little surprised to kind of go up there and, um, you know, I was I wasn't
expecting it and, you know, I did hear from my colleague at Fiser and, you know, unfortunately, she wasn't aware of what was going on that day. So, I just want to say for the record, um, you know, I, you know, I'm not at JB Fischer. I teach at MLK Preschool. So, I just wanted to make sure that, you know,
all the incredible work Miss Johnson and, you know, the Fiser family over there, you know, is recognized. And, you know, I hope that, and I know it was human error, you know, we're, you know, we all have that happen, but I just want to make sure that, um, you know, BOE
will take the time to reach out to her, you know, and the Fiser community to make sure that they have their moment. So, I just wanted to, you know, let the board know that and let the public know that, too, that, you know, they've been doing some great things over there. And all of us in early
childhood, you know, and Richmond public schools, we definitely look to, you know, Miss Johnson for a lot of strategies to help us in our own classrooms, too. >> So, just wanted to say kudos to her. >> Absolutely. No, and that's a great point, Darl. And again, I know that even some of the names that I that I called
out, and I think the same is true for uh others on here, that there are so many educators behind this incredible work. And you know, we um were recognizing site leaders and uh early childhood advisory committee members uh at the
meeting this week. We wish we could have included every single site leader um as well as of course all of the educators, the lead teachers, the assistant teachers, the paraprofessionals. I think Mr. Turner, as you noted, it truly takes
all of us to support our littles from once they get on the bus or walk into the building to um you know, their entire day. And um you know it is important as we think about supporting our ready regions to recognize the honor roles that we you know that we we do
recognize every every adult who supports and makes these highquality interactions possible. And I I really appreciate that. Um and I think we we are you know this is new for us and we've been working closely with the ready regions as we think through how do we kind of
recognize you know the those honoral sites. I will also say we had a lot of folks who scored very close to that right who were very close to exceeds expectations right or who were just just below right that that that that top 10% and I just don't want you know our
recognition of the honor roles to not um to in any way sort of dismiss what is just the incredible meaning of each meets expectation result and the score behind that and as I look at you know it is one of the the sort of
most detailed side, but I look at that improvement across the board. It's not just numbers, right? It truly reflects, you know, rigorous observation, an hour and a half, two hours of looking at what our educators are providing to children,
their skills and their strengths, right, and their areas for improvement. And just the biggest accomplishment is truly those 31,000 observations and all that that means for helping our educators and everybody who supports our educators to
be the best that they can possibly be. And I think that's just such an important point I think you know on on top of uh uh you know sort of why we have the honor roles. I also really appreciate Mr. Turner's point about um
recognizing these site leaders and educators as models that other can learn from. And I think sometimes we we we can lose sight of that. We sort of you know the answer isn't always you know PD in a box or something provided kind of an additional credential or something like
that. Sometimes we need to you know recognize folks who are doing this work very well and thinking about how do we share that share those best practices. Um, how can we all spend some time in Miss Johnson's classroom or uh at Miss
Suarez or Miss Parish's center uh visiting these classrooms and Miss Langford's program, right? to kind of understand how they're making it work. Even with all the challenges, even with the behaviors that might be challenging, even with the lack of funding and resources, even with the hardness that
it is and the challenges that we face in 2025 and in early childhood, to know that we have these exemplars and as Daryl talked about, the ability to go and learn from Miss Johnson and others is just such an asset for the the state. And so I just want to kind of reiterate
that we are so proud of the 99% of programs that met every expectation. We will work with those 25 to get them in that category. And hopefully I'll be here a year from now talking about everybody meeting expectations and everybody making improvement and more
models of excellence than we've ever seen before. Um, but what what a moment for early childhood in the Commonwealth. And I hope everybody feels proud of that. And I hope everybody joins me and recognizing, as Darl just did, the extraordinary educators who helped make
this possible. Yes, Jennifer. First of all, I want to say thank you to you and your team for making all this happen. And I'm so excited about where early childhood education is now and the results that we've seen, especially this
year. Um I'm wondering if and certainly not today but sometime in the future if we could ever have a discussion about um looking forward in terms of the bands um that we use for those ratings because you've got it needs improvement and
meets expectations are very large bands compared to exceeds expectations and a score of 400 is pretty different from a score of 650. Um, so I just wanted to throw that out again, not for today, but >> No, I love that. Thank you, Jennifer. I
love that question. And and and as we go to kind of what's next, I mean, you know, our our poor team. So, a huge a huge thank you goes out to uh our folks led by our uh assistant superintendent Aaron Carroll and the work by Ti West, Chris Meyers, and all of the data and
analytics and the VQB5 team as well as Marie uh the Monica Saro and the early learning. I mean, there's just it truly takes a full team effort to kind of get this much data. We get it out the door and then I turn around just as you just did Jennifer and I'm like okay so what
do we need to do to uh improve this system and they're like can we please take a breath but it's a really important kind of question as we uh Chris is laughing now she's laughing now people she's she's that's not always the feeling that she's feeling but you know
I think we we we are already as as we are preparing for these deep dives and as we are looking at our work with partners and sort of asking ready regions and other partners to think about this as this deep dives where is this strong and where do we need to
improve um and really looking at um could we get more improvement than we saw this year I'm excited to see that fourpoint improvement but I might want to see more in terms of kind of across the board and would creating for example
additional levels kind of break up that middle and create more incentives for more improvement you know knowing what we know from the 20 200 studies that suggest right that even you know sort of meaningful improvement in these interactions can drive real changes for
kids. So as you go into these deep dives, as you think about this data, as you look at the website, if you're a data nerd, you can download this and think about this. But I think there is, you know, we are we are we are we are not planning on just kind of sitting still with this, but kind of looking at
that data and we will come back to this body with some thoughts on okay, this is what the data tells us. you know, this is what we know from talking with educators and parents and, you know, practitioners and here are the potential shifts as we think about the guidelines
for um 2627 which will come in front of this group sometime next next spring. So really important question and I think really for me there is kind of the broader question of like how do we get the maximum improvement? I've asked the team, you know, I was so excited to see
the 50 sites move out of need supports and to meet expectation. We have 25 that have shifted into that category. How do we sort of both address the challenges that those sites are facing, but also make sure that we, you know, have no sites in that category next year, right? What might we want to do differently?
And so there are real um real challenges in there that that our data is telling us and we will certainly bring those back to the ECAC as we as we grapple with them and think about how we can strengthen the guidelines um and continue to move forward.
>> Thank you. >> Yep. Any other questions? And this kind of summarizes again that using this data we are also going to start to use some of the VKRP data to kind of understand the relationship between interactions curriculum used and how much kids grow
in a beginning of year um and think about how we also then share that with you. So one of the things that came up is we see lower uh small sort of less growth and expressive communication when you look at the literacy screening and probably a lot of that has to do with
kind of concept development and how much we're asking kids how and why questions and how much we're enabling preschoolers to uh develop and sort of say out loud more sophisticated thoughts. And that's just a really interesting insight on how kind of a particular measure and part of
class actually translates into kind of kids learning in a way that was not possible before we had preschool VKRP and and and and val. And so as we get this new data thinking about how do we put some of that at your fingertips and then you help you all can then help us
think about shaping guidelines and this kind of incremental improvement as we go forward. Um, okay. One, let me just go back for one second before we wrap it up. Um, the other, um, piece too, we're just going to continue to support some of the
shifts around curriculum change, again, gradually phasing that in, knowing that's some big shifts. And then ultimately uh and and Darl sort of said this best in terms of recognizing the workforce is really thinking through how do we communicate the results of this
year and do this in a way that recognizes that this is truly a a great investment that that elected officials can know if we start off with what I started off at the beginning of day that every dollar is going towards slots in alignment with parent choice. And then
you sort of on the book end you look at these VQB5 results and you can see the quality. You see where the dollars go and you can see the actual results in terms of the quality of what kids are experiencing. And we will use this information to not only elevate and
support the workforce in the way that um Darl was talking about, but as we think about going into this year's general assembly, how do we tell the story in a way that um continue can to sort of derive more competitive compensation and better supports for our very important
workforce? With that, I will turn it to Clark, our chair, and see if there's any uh final thoughts uh before we go into a close session for conflict of interest training. >> Uh Jenna, thank you. I would like to kind of piggyback on what Jennifer
commented, and that was the uh excellence of these presentations by you, Becca, and Jeff, if he is still with us. Um, I don't know when y'all sleep. The data and information that y'all put together and bring to our group to um is outstanding. So, um,
thank you for for such concise information and everything so easy to wrap our heads around and the opportunity for us to ask questions. Uh, anyone from the group? Does anyone have any questions before we move to the next item on our agenda?
Okay. So, we are at a point in the agenda where we are going to need to pause uh our live stream while we move into a closed session portion uh of our agenda today. Um at this point, I would like to move that the Early Childhood
Advisory Committee convene in a closed meeting for the following purposes. Consultation with legal counsel employed by or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice
by such council pursuant to 2.2 2 3711 section A section 8 of the code of Virginia and that the legal counsel to the early childhood advisory committee and staff whose presence will aid in the committee's consideration of this matter
participate in the closed meeting. So at this point we will be moving to closed session. We do need a second on that. >> Thank you, Becca. Do we have a second on that motion?
>> I second that motion. >> Was Was that Jon? Who who who did the second? >> Yes. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. And we'll be stopping the live stream now. I'll just ask that um
we we will need one one or two